It’s always great when a movie offers Nicolas Cage the opportunity to act his face off. We got that in Vampire’s Kiss, Face/Off (to some degree) and now there’s truckloads of it in Chris McKay’s Renfield.
The movie places the character Renfield centre-stage, played by the ever-charming Nicholas Hoult. Renfield has spent centuries serving and cleaning up after Dracula (Cage). Every single time’s he’s thought about standing up to his master, he finds himself reined in once more. Currently, they’re settled in a new location after a recent attack, and Renfield’s nursing Dracula back to full power. In a show of minor protest, Renfield isn’t giving his master the kind of victims he desires – like nuns and a busload of cheerleaders. Instead, he’s tracking down monstrous individuals to serve up on the platter.
Clearly, Renfield isn’t a good guy, considering what he’s done in service to Dracula, but Hoult manages to give the character a credible moral compass and a sense of innocence. It’s a skill really, being able to make obviously villainous characters so likeable. While I liked that the movie started with a black and white flashback sequence, I do wish we got more backstory into how Renfield became Dracula’s familiar. They give us the cliffnotes version, but seeing that history more fleshed out would have allowed us to connect more with the character, and pave the way for a stronger redemption arc.
Cage is of course the star here. He’s chewing scenery every chance he gets, and absolutely captures the essence of Dracula – the physicality, the dramatics, it’s honestly iconic. It’s such a shame that the material isn’t as good his performance. He’s barely in the film, and while we get to see quite a bit of Dracula’s abilities, the necessary mythology and worldbuilding is missing. Instead, we get a contrived storyline involving Awkwafina’s Rebecca Quincey, a police officer, and the local crime family, led by matriarch Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo).
Ben Schwartz playing a criminal thug in a movie is not something I ever foresaw, and while he’s decent in the role of Teddy Lobo, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to fear him or laugh at him. This secondary storyline is shoehorned into the main storyline with Renfield and Dracula, and overtakes the entire narrative. With almost the entire police force under their payroll, the Lobos get away with everything, and Rebecca’s not been able to make any of the charges stick. Her determination and courage inspires Renfield, especially since he’s the exact opposite.
The movie can’t quite commit to whether there’s anything romantic going on between Renfield and Rebecca or not. There seems to be a desire to push a more romantic relationship, but there’s also the awareness that Renfield isn’t a good guy, so it doesn’t make sense that Rebecca would be remotely into that considering her strong moral fibre.
The action scenes are a ton of fun – very gruesome with some nicely placed needle drops – and possess a nice balance of horror and comedy. The film’s main weaknesses is really the lackluster storyline and the decision to not prioritise the Renfield/Dracula dynamic. We’re all at the cinema to see Cage and Hoult do their thing – who cares about the Lobos?
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